Discussions

What mechanism did the creator use in order to "create"? Did he just declare "Let there be the universe!" and poof, the universe sprang into being? Or did he fold up his arms and blink? Or did he wiggle his nose?

consider what humans will be able to create in 1000 years. They will have the technology to create new cellular forms based on a completely redesigned DNA. And they will have the technology to send that new life form to another solar system in our galaxy. Future humans will be the creators of life on a far away planet. They will be intelligent designers.

Can't it be possible that we were created by a distant civilization of intelligent beings? Unexplained is how was our creator created. But at least a logical case can be made that we could have been created.

From the position of an intelligent designer, having people die and then born again is a very good way to deal with the problem of free will, autonomous individuals becoming bored with eternity. I read over and over again that the universe just works. That there are numerous law of nature necessary for the galaxies and solar system to form, for life to be supportable and then to have evolved. I think circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly favors the existance of a creator.

If winRT apps are sandboxed that means a PC cannot be malwared thru a winRT app, correct? If so, I think it would be a huge step forward for user's to be able to use their PC without the threat of malware attacks.

The only way I would be fine with Windows 8 is if there would be a way to completely deactivate Metro or at least make it so that you won't notice it much (add a start menu!) and some sort of promise that the traditional Desktop won't get deprecated for at least ten years.

the metro desktop is where the money is. Microsoft can make money thru people's daily use of their ddetects gestures would replace the need to touch the displayesktop apps. Why you need touch to make a tiled desktop work is something I do not understand. Maybe a keyboard that detects gestures would make a desktop metro more useable.

It seems to me that the silence over the last few months must have been because they changed direction. I'm guessing the the .NET to WinRT was the hold up and they wanted to see if they could do it before they announced it.

the only thing I can think of that would keep .NET from being embraced by consumer windows is if there are security flaws in .NET apps. And I don't know enough to say that or not. But Windows 7 and earlier PCs are way too much of a hassle for users in terms of getting viruses.

Will a programmer have to register with Microsoft and pay a $99 annual fee to write an app for windows 8 and deploy it to their own PC? Will a fee have to be paid to deploy an app to someone else's PC?

... but Windows, as an organization, is infinitely more open and transparent than Apple.

Microsoft wants to be more like Apple. Apple makes a lot of money.

Windows 8 looks to be about splitting Windows in two parts. Windows used by businesses. Which need programming. And Windows used by consumers. Which needs apps.

Build is likely to be about how to write apps that will be sold thru and deployed by Microsoft onto the consumer windows desktop. A great opportunity for programmers to make some money. But I would not expect a programming paradigm breakthru. If anything, there will be more than a few restrictions regarding what your app can do and how much access it has to the resources of the PC.

Isn't the browser going to become the definitive cross platform, cross browser host for future apps with HTML5?

For the user to get to the browser they first see the desktop. On the desktop is a tiny icon that says "browser". The remainder of the space is taken by apps the platform provider has placed there. To buy a book or video game and download it to your tablet you can open the browser and navigate to amazon. Or enter directly into the desktop app that takes up a 1/4 of the screen space and is customized for the particular user's use.

Companies can almost ship these tablets and even home PCs for no charge. Where they make money by funneling all the user activity thru the apps that are loaded on the system. I think the browser is going to be marginalized.